THE POND ON HIRAM'S FARM (BLOSSOMING MAPLE) signed (probably 1935); inscribed on the upper edge "141"; inscribed by Massey "106", and inscribed by Laing on a label "Palgrave c. 1932" on the reverse oil on canvas 61 by 81 cm. 24 by 32 in. Milne seldom worked on canvases as large as this, but during his three immensely productive years in Palgrave (1930 - 33), a small village beside the Humber River in the Caledon Hills, Milne painted large and ambitious works, of which this is indisputably a major one. Hiram Gibson's farm was east of the village beside what is now Gibson Lake. The subject intrigued Milne and this is the first of four variations of it: Splendour Touches Hiram's Farm (National Gallery of Canada), The Cold and Rain Grip Hiram's Farm (Winnipeg Art Gallery), and The Maple Blooms on Hiram's Farm (Museum London). This is the largest of the four paintings by far, and in many respects the most successful. At Palgrave, Silcox comments, Milne "was able to accomplish in oils what he had done in watercolours at Boston Corners: to create a major body of work that is cohesive, intricate and energetic. The Palgrave countryside had many of the attributes Milne had found inspiring for his paintings in Boston Corners, chief among them the rhythm of shapes of the buildings in the village and in the surrounding terrain, the serenity of the sky and the dramatic parade of clouds, the undulating hills, the dense swamps, rich in colour and foliage, and the fluctuations of light, weather and season...For Milne, a connection with the land was instinctive, fundamental, essential." This work is in the Milne Catalogue Raisonné as no. 302.121.

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